MentorWords

Before we moved across the country in 2008, we permitted our then 16-year-old son to graduate from high school. The prospect of starting over in a small town with a bunch of kids who’d known one another since kindergarten was daunting. Intellectually and emotionally he seemed ready, so we pursued the option of starting college early.

One month after he began taking courses at our nearby UW feeder campus I feared we had made a terrible mistake. Our usually creative, articulate, curious son was producing plodding, average, uninteresting work. For weeks our parental conversation was consumed with whether or not we had made a mistake, if he was ready for college, and if we were damaging his future prospects. It was our daughter who suggested that he was terrified, but covering up.

That was it. He was intimidated by the older students, by his fear that he had missed out on something important by skipping ahead, and by his fear of letting himself and us down. The fear was productive insofar as it was driving him to do his homework in a timely manner and make sure he listened in class. But now he feared something new – that he hated college, and that nothing could be done about it.

I reassured my son by telling him to give things a little more time, and then I did what I always do . . . I called my dad. Dad reminded me of a similar experience in my own past, and asked what had made the difference for me. I remembered my turning point in college was being successful in a class I loved, and I realized that all of my son’s classes were freshman starter classes, nuts and bolts affairs designed to turn him into a good college student. Together my son and I dove into the course catalog and found a creative writing class that was not due to start for another week. Once he started that class, he found his motivation.

There are many psychological theories about motivation, but one of the most dominant divides motivation into two types: aversion and attraction. When we are still relishing our accomplishments as we lay down to sleep, when we can’t wait for the next day to arrive, when we practically wiggle through breakfast in anticipation of getting to our next project, that’s attraction motivation at work. On the other hand, if you are grinding out production because you are worried about paying the bills, or making yourself indispensible in a stultifying job because you believe it is lay-off proof, your motivation is based on the avoidance of pain and suffering – or aversion.

Am I suggesting that you leap from a sure paycheck into the abyss of hopeful self-employment? Not at all. I’m a strong believer in financial responsibility. But what if that sure paycheck job has left you creatively dry, without interesting dinner-time conversation and on the verge of a mid-life crisis? It may be helpful for you to realize that the difference between attraction and aversion motivation can be quite subtle. One woman’s grinding out production is another woman’s joy of independence. One man’s wearisome trade show is another man’s festival of customer conversation.

None of us like everything we do in the course of our work – even those of us who love our jobs. But you can love the job you’ve got – even if it’s just long enough to successfully transition yourself to the one you’d love – with a little change in perspective.

If you are happily attraction motivated, don’t take it for granted. Now is the time to analyze what it is you are attracted to. On those days, or during those dry spells, when your flame of passion is sputtering, you can retrieve your list of attractions and keep the flame from blowing out completely.

If you are already in an aversion-motivation drought, you have my sympathies. I know how that feels, and that you don’t want to be there. Here are a few ideas to regenerate your motivation based on attraction.

Start by considering the things that you are trying to avoid or which are causing you to be fearful. I suggest you write them down. Writing scary ideas on paper seems to remove some of the power they gained while floating around in our heads. Next to each item, rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being “mostly in my imagination” and 10 being “already happening.” Spend a day or two thinking about your list and talking about it with a trusted friend or mentor. Don’t skip the talking part! It is the process of discussing and analyzing with the benefit of another person’s insight that enables us to move past our own stuck ideas and into new ways of thinking.

Undoubtedly you will have one or two big concerns that were rated a 9 or 10. The truth is, everyone does – even folks who are happily attraction motivated. Once you have disposed of the laundry list of less worthy concerns, you can devote your attention to dealing with the real things that are getting in your way. Make a plan for either solving or improving your big concerns, and set that plan in motion. It may be something as immediate as catching up on two months of mortgage payments, or as ongoing as saving for your retirement. Either way, working to address the concern is what returns you to a feeling of control in your life.

Once you have restored your self-confidence (which comes, in part, from feeling in control), you can return your attention to the things you love to do, the accomplishments that will make you proud, and the identity you want to build. You will build your own list of attractions, and you will find that many of those attractions have been present all along. You will also discover that there are some things that consume your time and energy that are neither necessary to avoid real pain now nor generating present satisfaction or future success. Eliminate those things, and replace them with the activities, relationships, and investments that are motivating to you because you are attracted to them or to the opportunities they will provide.

The study of motivation will continue to challenge psychologists, teachers, and business owners as each group attempts to define and use motivation for their own purpose. I’ve chosen a simpler route, and now, so has my son. We’re taking dad’s advice. We’re making sense of our anxieties, doing what we love whenever we can, and finding something to love in what we’re doing the rest of the time.

© 2009. Andrea M. Hill